Greenhouse growers in the Lea Valley are throwing away perfectly good produce due to low sales caused by cold weather, and a lack of labour.
“It is the perfect storm,” said Lea Stiles, secretary of the Lea Valley Growers Association (LVGA). “Growers delayed planting by a couple of months due to high energy costs and are now in full production. Meanwhile, the Spanish crop, which would normally be finished by now, was delayed because of cold weather, and they are still exporting to try to make up for losses. The Dutch growers also delayed planting due to energy costs and are in full swing.”
The cold weather has reduced sales of salad products by 7-10%, meaning that subsidised product from Europe is dominating the UK market, where UK growers who have not had support with energy costs, are at a disadvantage.
“Anything being imported from the EU has had the benefit of EU subsidies, UK growers don’t get these, they didn’t get them before Brexit either as most of the growers are too small and there was too much paperwork involved,” continued Lee. “This is also the case for tomatoes and peppers. We are seeing hundreds of tonnes of tomatoes going to anaerobic biomass plants every day, normally, we would see this for a couple of days in the season, but it feels like it has been happening all month.”
He warned that more producers would go out of business this year unless the government steps in. “The Government needs to concentrate on getting more labour for growers and solving the energy crisis, instead they are focussing on increasing import and making new trade deals,” Lee said.
